Energy Development Proposals: Mid Buckinghamshire

Michael Shanks Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)]

I thank the hon. Member for securing this evening’s Adjournment debate. It has certainly not been lacking in hyperbole, and I look forward to responding to his specific points. Phrases such as “ticking time bomb”, “intent on destroying” and “thrown under the bus” suggest that we have taken a rational view on some of these decisions, although I will say that his comment about “two Teslas on the drive” suggests that our constituencies are quite different. Perhaps that will come forward in my remarks.

I will pick up on the general thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s speech before turning to some of the specifics. He put forward a case that wrongly asserts that the only options are either a clean power system with renewables at its heart, or nuclear. I will come to his point about SMRs shortly, but I agree with him that there is a rational case for balance. We see nuclear as playing a critical role in our energy system in the future, but we also understand that building out a clean power system requires building renewables as well, because they are cheaper to operate and they deliver home-grown energy security in a way that gas plants do not. I will come back to the clean power action plan’s pathway in due course.

The truth is that the hon. Gentleman spent the past 20 minutes outlining—in fact, he was quite open and honest about this—that he wants no infrastructure built in his constituency at all, yet I assume that his constituents still want to be able to rely on that infrastructure in their daily lives, including railways, hospitals, schools, energy and prisons. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues certainly want us to use prisons much more, but he does not want us to build prisons anywhere in his constituency. I am always very careful about the arguments on nimbyism, but at the heart of this issue is a real question about the fact that, at some point, we have to acknowledge that if we are to build infrastructure in this country, it has to be hosted somewhere.

As someone who has one of Europe’s biggest onshore wind farms just outside my window in my constituency, I recognise that some constituencies will have to host important infrastructure on behalf of the country, and we all need to play a part in that. The reality is that delivering energy security requires us to build much more infrastructure, even if that includes small modular reactors. However, it is estimated that demand for electricity in this country will double by 2050, so the need of all our constituents, including the hon. Gentleman’s, for electricity and the jobs of the future will mean building much more infrastructure.

The hon. Gentleman made an important point about the cumulative impact of infrastructure, which the Government have tried to wrestle with. That is partly why we launched the strategic spatial energy plan, so that we have a holistic approach to planning the energy system in the long term—the work should have been started a long time ago, but it was not undertaken by the previous Government. Alongside that, colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have launched the land use framework for the same reason: to try to plan the long-term future for land across our country. Given that food security is incredibly important, how do we protect land for food, and how do we identify pieces of land where we will build nationally important infrastructure? That is incredibly important.

I repeat the point that we need to build infrastructure in this country. I am afraid that we have buried our head in the sand for far too long with respect to the infrastructure that is necessary, and the grid is struggling as a result. It is really important that we find a way to build that infrastructure in a holistic way that recognises the cumulative impact on communities. I want the hon. Gentleman to appreciate that I recognise that point.

The hon. Gentleman noted that several projects are in the queue to connect to the grid—I think there is some 746 GW in the queue at the moment. I say gently that the reason it has got quite so out of control is that the previous Government did not manage the queue properly. There was not sufficient reform to manage it, so there are, as he says, several zombie projects that will never be developed but are taking up space in the connections queue. We have announced that we want significant reform to ensure that we are prioritising the projects that will actually be delivered, that are important for our energy security and, crucially, that will free up space for demand projects to be connected to the grid, which is important for our economic growth. More on that will be announced by NESO and Ofgem in due course.

The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that I cannot give an answer to some of his specific points, because for legal reasons I have to be careful not to comment. However, Rosefield, the solar farm that he mentioned, is at the pre-application stage. The application for development consent is expected to be submitted in, I think, Q3 or Q4 of this year. At this point, it is developer-led.

On a number of the points that the hon. Gentleman raised, I should say that the Government do not go out and identify these projects; developers identify the projects and then have a conversation with landowners.

[Greg Smith]

The problem with the argument that the Minister is trying to construct is that every time a developer comes along with a proposal, and the community pushes back with “Why are you doing this?”, the answer—every single time—is “Because the Government are asking us to.” That is what frustrates communities and frustrates me every single time. If the Minister accepts that that is the developers’ excuse, he can either correct them and say, “No, the Government are not asking you to do this,” or find a way to challenge those presumptions and the cumulative impacts, which I am grateful that he says he wants to address.

[Michael Shanks]

I take the point, but although the Government absolutely do say, “We need to build a clean power system and therefore these projects are important,” what we do not say is, “Please build a solar wind farm in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.” These are developer-led projects; it is developers who identify the site.

On the question of land ownership, the Government are not in the business of appropriating land for energy projects. The landowners have made a decision to sell their land for these projects, and that is a relationship that they have with the developer. It is a developer-led process. I know that the hon. Gentleman will continue to provide his views as the process continues. If the Rosefield application is accepted by the Planning Inspectorate, he and all his constituents will be able to engage with the planning process and register as interested parties.

I reiterate that although the Government think that the planning system could be considerably more efficient, that is not about removing the robustness of the system so that communities no longer have a voice. We want communities to have a voice in the process, but we do not want them to be hanging around for years until decisions are made. We want the process to be more efficient, but communities should absolutely still have a voice. That is incredibly important.

If the application comes to the Secretary of State, it is the duty of the Secretary of State to be satisfied that the pre-application consultation process has been carried out properly and adequately, in compliance with the Planning Act 2008. I know that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, given my Department’s quasi-judicial role in these applications, I cannot comment on anything more specific.

The hon. Gentleman raised a number of points on batteries. Battery storage is incredibly important. To build the clean power system we need, we need a mix of both short-duration storage, which batteries provide, and long-duration storage, which we have not built in this country for an extremely long time. We have announced that we will build new long-duration storage, but we know there is an important role for batteries to play in short-duration storage so that we can store the clean power generated from wind and solar for when we need it.

Of course, these projects will go through the planning process too. I am aware that East Claydon has been rejected by the local council. Of course, the applicant has a right to appeal. Again, I hope the hon. Gentleman understands that it would be wrong for me to comment on that particular case at this point.

More generally, batteries are important both for maintaining storage and for reducing people’s bills by storing clean power, which we know is much cheaper in the long run. This minimises the investment in new generation, so if we get the mix of batteries right alongside other renewable technologies, we can help to minimise the need to build more infrastructure by storing power for when we need it. Batteries play an important role in balancing the electricity system.

We outlined in the clean power action plan that between 23 GW and 27 GW of grid-scale batteries could be required to meet our decarbonisation goal by 2030. Not far from my constituency, one of Europe’s largest battery plants was announced recently, so this infrastructure is being shared across the UK.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on rooftop solar, which is a real opportunity. He rightly talks about warehouses, and we have a lot of multi-storey car parks, a lot of factories and a huge number of roofs in this country that I am happy to see covered in solar panels. It is not an either/or. There is certainly a role for rooftop solar, and we have announced that we want to see a rooftop revolution in solar. We have been working on bringing forward new building standards so that new build houses and commercial buildings have this as a key part of their design. There is also a critical role for ground-mounted solar, and we can meet our ambitions if we combine the two.

The previous Government launched a solar taskforce to build out as much capacity in rooftop solar as possible, while also increasing the number of ground- mounted solar projects, and we have reconvened it to address not just the roll-out but how communities can benefit much better from hosting that infrastructure. We look forward to publishing that soon.

The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members spoke about food security, and I make it clear that we take the view that food security is national security. It is critically important that we maintain food security across the country. Even if we built out all the solar that we currently expect to build, it would still take up less than 1% of the UK’s agricultural land, so we do not see food production and renewable energy as competing priorities. The two can co-exist.

We all want to see a resilient and healthy food system. The hon. Members for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) and for Mid Buckinghamshire both mentioned floodplains. Tackling climate change will be one of the most important ways to reduce the frequency of floods in such areas, which is crucial for maintaining arable farmland. We have to tackle the climate crisis if we are to maintain our food security, but we also want a balanced approach to land use.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the land use framework, which was announced last week. Unsurprisingly perhaps—far be it from me to say this—The Daily Telegraph misleadingly suggested that all of this farmland will be reused for renewable energy projects. That is not what the framework says. It says there are a number of uses for that land in relation to sustainability, such as where there are peatlands or particular environmental schemes that could help to lock in carbon, support biodiversity and wildlife, and help us to meet our climate obligations. It is not that the land will be used to build energy projects, as the article wrongly said.

We are determined to bring communities with us. We want communities to have a voice and for communities that host infrastructure to benefit from it, so we will deliver a package of community benefits.

On small modular reactors, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, we do not see energy as coming from one source or another. Nuclear will play a critical role in our energy mix far beyond 2030. It provides a critical amount of baseload, as well as skilled and well-paid jobs across the country. We want to see the SMR programme rolled out. We inherited much of that from the previous Government, but it had not really been progressed and none of it had been built during those 14 years. We now want to move at pace to deliver it. We see nuclear as important, alongside a balanced renewables system.

I conclude by again thanking the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire for securing the debate. He and I will not agree on everything, but I hope we can find a way to ensure that we build a resilient energy system that balances the needs of different communities. On his point about the cumulative impact, I hope we can find a way through that, so that all communities benefit from infrastructure, but some will have to host it as well.

Question put and agreed to.